out of feathers, out of bones
by whimsycality
Summary: Vengeance is not always the end, sometimes it is the means. Or, a soldier finds his way home, three lost souls find a new one, and a team makes a stand. You absolutely do not have to have seen Roswell to enjoy or understand this fic.
1. Chapter 1

They've been a team for a little over a year, dealt with three more potential apocalypses and a baker's dozen of wannabe supervillains with plans that range from patently ludicrous to just ridiculous enough to be dangerous. And that's not including anything they've dealt with on an individual level. At the very least, Tony is sure that Clint and Natasha have probably also toppled at least three corrupt regimes and defeated numerous spies and nutjobs in the same span of time. Not to mention Thor's jaunt back to Asgard, and Steve's occasional road trips when his blue eyes start to look more like ice than freedom.

There are still rough spots between them, sharp edges that catch each other's weak points just so to spill all their hate and pain and ghosts in the form of vicious words and poisonous silence. But the rough spots are shrinking, the sharp edges not dulling - never that - but being pointed in other directions, at other people. He hasn't wanted to leave any of them stranded on a deserted island in _weeks_.

Which, of course, is when it all goes to hell in a handbasket. Tony's always hated that metaphor, who the fuck even uses a handbasket anymore and since when could a handbasket drag anyone to hell? Maybe if Natasha strangled someone with one, but really, there are better endings to that particular phrase and his favorite involves a helicarrier.

That's where it starts, where it's always started. First, the unexpected gut punch.

Steve's best friend is alive. Steve's best friend is a brainwashed assassin who used to train Natasha back when she was filling her ledger up with all that red. Steve is suddenly moved to both most terrifying team-member and team-member most in need of a hug: Tony has never seen Fury look intimidated before.

Natasha is outwardly calmer, but then the terror of her silence is enough to make a soldier weep, so he's not counting on her being rational or safe, for any measure of the word, until the situation has been resolved.

There are plans made, indications given that perhaps Barnes is coming out of what's been done to him on his own - although Tony personally isn't sure if a half-brainwashed rogue assassin is any less lethal than a fully brainwashed and under orders assassin, so.

And then, barely a week later, they're back on the helicarrier for the right hook that always seems to follow the gut-punch.

Some branch of the FBI has been experimenting on special people, people with abilities out of the ordinary. The clinical discussion of the few details SHIELD has is enough to trigger half the rest of the team - Bruce is breathing deeply with his eyes closed while the white lines around Steve's eyes deepen and Clint's tensed up and watching Natasha, whose hands are pressed against the table with enough force that Tony's pretty sure it's the only thing keeping her from wrapping them around someone's throat.

They do not need this. Not now, not with Barnes out there acting like a stalker or a fugitive depending on the day of the week. In fact, really, it'd be great if this could have happened, oh, never.

"We're not sure how many escaped; there wasn't much left of the base by the time we got there," Fury says, voice rough with enough exhaustion that Tony wonders when he stopped pretending to be untouchable around them. "Two of them had an altercation with a SHIELD agent; there's now one less of them and I have a letter to write to a mother who had no idea what her son did."

Tony winces and Thor is wearing one of those expressions that remind everyone that he's a thousand year old warrior, not just a cheerful, overgrown puppy with a mean swing.

"Are we treating them as enemies, sir?" Steve's voice is carefully neutral and those impossibly blue eyes of his are fixed on Fury without a hint of the deference his use of the word sir implies. Tony smiles despite himself.

"Treat them as dangerous. The order is catch and contain, but if you need to defend yourselves, don't hold back. We don't know what these individuals might be capable of."

Steve looks about as happy with that as Tony knows the rest of them feel. They are all dangerous. Fury still doesn't know what they're capable of, and Tony knows the rest of them, his team, have not forgotten about the reasons behind the Tesseract research. There are those who want to contain _them_. Bruce still flinches every time he sees an army uniform.

But there's a dead SHIELD agent, and a world full of people not nearly as dangerous as they are, and so no one argues with Fury.

Catch and contain an unknown number of people with unknown levels of power while also trying to catch and not get killed by the deadly ghost of Steve and Natasha's past. Well, can't be any worse than a nuke and a crazy god and a portal in the sky, right?

One day he'll learn to stop tempting fate. Ha. Who's he kidding. He's Tony Fucking Stark and he will never stop daring fate to do its worst.

Barnes seems to prefer the shadows and has yet to do anything more threatening than break into the apartment Steve still keeps in Brooklyn despite essentially living in the Tower. Unfortunately, it very quickly becomes clear that unlike Captain America's pet assassin, this new batch of human grenades has no intention of running and hiding.

There are three assassinations in two weeks before SHIELD (well, Jarvis and Tony and Hill, who's proven to be both competent and able to put up with all their shit) realizes that the targets were all aware of and involved in, to one extent or another, the funding, cover-up, and administration of the now exploded FBI unit.

None of them are feeling particularly sympathetic for the victims, but the level of damage the hits have caused, and the amount of attention they've brought, means the problem falls into their lap. They're soon busy tracking the rest of the bastards they're now in charge of protecting, however reluctantly. Tony wonders how escaped experiments are getting their hands on information he's spending sleepless marathons finding, and how many more unstable geniuses he can offer jobs to before Pepper fires him.

Finally, they get lucky with one of their missions and show up at the right target's house at the same time as their elusive, but violent prey.

It's a girl. Just one. Young enough to look like she should be in art classes with Steve, not blowing out the sides of buildings with a flick of her wrist. Her eyes, dark and angry and bright with intelligence, catch on them and she snarls, then laughs, an incongruously sweet sound as her gaze sweeps over them derisively. "Pretty puppets, doling out government sanctioned vengeance. Other wrongs need not apply, hmm?"

Maybe Tony got the order wrong, 'cause this sure as hell feels like a gut punch.

His quick tongue never fails him though (even when it really, _really_ should) and he steps forward, letting the faceplate of the suit slide up to reveal his cocky smirk. "Sorry, sweetheart, but catching super-powered murderers is kind of our job."

She looks unimpressed and even he doesn't really believe his words. They might be technically true, but he's always been more a spirit than the letter kind of guy, much to, well, everyone's despair. "You can't hide them forever," is all she says in response. And then she's gone, disappearing into thin air as the lighter bits of debris swirl around in her wake.

"Well, fuck," Clint says. And that's really all there is to say about the situation.

They pack up, go home, and start trying to figure out her next potential target. And how to compensate for her ability to teleport - Tony has to work very, very hard to not geek out uncontrollably over the person they're supposed to be catching. She has some version of telekinesis, judging by the whole wall exploding thing, and she can move herself through space at will. Mostly, at this point, he wants to know how the hell the FBI managed to keep her locked up for so long to begin with.

None of them feel all that guilty when they hear that the SHIELD safehouse the Senator had been holed up in is hit. There are no casualties besides the asshat who funneled money into human experimentation, and Tony knows he's not the only one who finds it telling that, other than that first SHIELD agent, there hasn't been a single extraneous death since then. In his experience, most crazed and violent individuals with super-powers don't care about collateral damage.

The next time they beat her to the punch she lets out a long suffering sigh that could match one of Pepper's, and looks more tired than angry when she glares at them. "When you finally catch me, can you make sure my cage has reading material? Torture gets boring real fast."

"We don't condone torture," Steve bites out. He's been twitchy ever since a certain assassin dropped in on him at lunch, ate half his sandwich, and vanished without a word. He also hates this mission possibly more than anyone besides Bruce.

"You know, I read your comics as a kid, Captain," she says, her head tilted to the side as she meets his gaze without a hint of give. "Your stubborn refusal to accept what 'should' be gave me hope. Guess the real world got to you too."

She's gone before Steve can say anything else and no one speaks as Steve stalks back outside to their SHIELD issued SUV, every line of his body tight with anger.

Tony sighs and has Jarvis call Pepper; he needs her pragmatism and warmth before he goes back to sorting through the shitstains they're protecting for the next likely target. Wasn't stopping people like this supposed to be _why_ they were here, doing this whole team of superheroes thing?

He also doesn't want to think too closely about the resignation in the girl's tone and what it says about what she's been through that she's willing to risk being captured again if it means getting rid of the ones behind it. It makes him think of Gulmira and terrorists and a bone deep ache borne of rage and fear that demanded release.

It's all rough spots and sharp edges for everyone these days. Natasha and Steve are sleeping even less than usual and the tension in the Tower is rising to critical levels. If something doesn't break soon, well, a lot of other things will end up broken. And people.

The third and fourth times they catch up to her, she doesn't bother speaking.

There's a lull after that, maybe she's waiting for them to slip up, and that's when James Buchanan Barnes decides to come in out of the cold.


	2. Chapter 2

He was choking, something rubber in his mouth and metal on his limbs - metal _in_ his limbs - and he'd lashed out against the grabbing hands and harsh voices. When he comes back to himself, to whoever or whatever he is, he's surrounded by dead bodies and broken machinery. Sparks from trailing wires crackle in small puddles of blood, tainting the air with the smell of burnt copper, and his body hums with the need for more: more violence, more _everything_.

He catches a reflection of himself in what he knows must be two way glass and wonders if _he_ isn't some frankenstein monster concocted out of dead bodies and broken machinery.

There is silence on the other side of the mirror that is not a mirror, silence that speaks of terror, and he is through it before he's had time to process his movements. His metal hand is wrapped around a throat and squeezing just soft enough to keep the woman conscious and able to talk.

He wants to ask who he is, but some voice in his head thinks that's pathetic so he settles for "Where are we?"

"New, New York," she chokes out, eyes wide and terrified and he sneers.

"Why?"

"We need you to kill-" the rest of her words are lost against the white-out in his head, flashing fragments of orders and a sniper scope and blood coating his metal arm until the whole thing matched the red star on the side.

He never does find out who they'd wanted him to kill. When the noise in his skull fades to something manageable, he realizes that he's squeezed too hard, torn out her throat, and drops her body with a grimace.

Made out of dead men and broken machines, sounds about right.

There's more information to be had in the machines, computers, in the room, but his skills do not extend to extracting it. Extracting screams, blood, information in wrung out, terrified voices: those are his skills. He doesn't need to know his name to know that.

He still wants to know why.

He prowls through the rest of the base, but finds no one else - if there were more, they've long since fled. When he crawls out of the basement and into a run-down house, the sunlight filtering in through dirt-streaked windows makes him flinch.

There is noise outside. Not like the noise in his head. Just, noise. Voices and laughter and shouts that aren't preludes to violence and-. He goes back down into the basement before he whites-out again and stays there until his internal clock tells him the sun has vanished and with it, hopefully, most of the people.

He hoped in vain. If anything, there are more people.

But the cover of darkness, even when filled to bursting with artificial lights and the noise of passing cars, feels less suffocating than the warm sunlight had and he leaves the house behind, taking only the least blood-stained coat and his fractured memories with him.

His ragged appearance and the visible parts of his metal arm draw no more than a few glances and he finds himself thinking fondly about the fact that New Yorkers never change. It stops him in the middle of the sidewalk, the mass of humanity flowing around him without pause. He knows New York. He's _from_ New York.

He thinks. Maybe. Fuck.

A rise of red, red anger threatens to blind him and he shoves it down, turning sharply into a nearby alley and leaning against the dirty brick as he fights to breathe.

He can smell trash and urine and rain in the air and something else that is indefinably _home_ and it hurts, as does the sudden aching awareness of the empty space beside him, as if there should be someone else there, leaning against the wall with him and struggling for breath.

The sensation fades, along with the need for violence, replaced with a coldness that sinks into his bones. It disturbs him that he finds it comforting.

Something urges him to continue down the alley and he follows that urge through more streets, up and across several buildings, until he has slid through the window into an empty loft. There is a rifle under the floorboards, several knives hidden in the walls, and a pistol taped into the tank of a toilet that hasn't been attached to the building's plumbing in years. You can't see them, but he also knows there are blood stains on the dingy paint, tortured groans still echoing off the bathroom tile.

There are so many voices in his head, most of them angry or in pain, that he can't sort out if any of them are actually _his_. When they quiet again, he is curled up on the floorboards over the rifle, hands shaking and blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten his cheek to keep from screaming. He focuses on controlling his breathing and drifts into a restless doze, too light for dreams but too heavy for peace.

The growl of his stomach wakes him more thoroughly and he slips back out the window into the grey of pre-dawn. He steals bread, apples, and carrots from an outdoor produce stand and feels another flicker of deja-vu. He thinks the last time he stole food, it was for whoever belongs in the empty space at his side.

He doesn't know if he wants to remember who it was, too afraid that it will be more blood on his hands.

He goes back to the empty loft and spends the rest of the day eating, dozing, and shaking his way through several more episodes of fragmented memories. Most are more of the same, endless death at his hands, but some, some are different. Some involve smiles, and friendships, and flashes of red hair, and a pair of blue eyes that make his heart seize in his chest for reasons other than fear and rage.

That night, he breaks into the nearest public library and steals every news magazine he can carry.

The year feels like it should hit him harder than it does, and well over half the names and faces in the political, business, and celebrity sections mean nothing to him. The ones that do, he doesn't know why. But about a third of the magazines, the ones that date around a year old or less, the faces on those covers make his pulse quicken and his hands clench hard enough that three of the magazines get torn in half before he can control himself.

Red hair, and blue eyes, just as vivid as they are in the memories he can't quite grasp onto. The disgustingly patriotic uniform too. It stirs both anger, from the cold side that spits '_enemy_', and a violent ache in his chest that feels like longing.

He rolls the name Stark around in his mouth and it tastes like arrogance, like a smirk.

"Who the hell am I?" he mutters, his voice a guttural rasp that hovers in the air around him like yet another ghost.

He breaks into a different library the next night and steals books, about Captain America and the Starks, hoping for a clue to who he was, who heis, that he remembers blue eyes and a blinding smile and an outstretched hand.

Weapons forged of flesh and machines aren't supposed to remember _belonging_.

If he is not a weapon, he does not know what he is, other than lost.

The books about Stark don't tell him much, although he realizes that the name Howard strikes a far more familiar chord than Tony. But Captain America, those books. Half leave him with a sense of ill-defined rage at how _wrong_ they are, although he couldn't explain why he knows that if someone asked. And the others, the ones filled with interviews and sparse facts, make his head ache like there's someone inside, trying to break free.

There's a picture, in one of them, the Captain with a bunch of raggedy soldiers, the Howling Commandos. His face stares out of the picture, grinning crookedly as he leans into the Captain's, _Steve's_, side.

It hits him like a gut punch and this time, when he comes back into focus, the book is stuck to one of the walls with a knife.

He has a name now, to go with the face. Faces. James Barnes and Steve Rogers. He's not sure he believes the first person exists, but the second… the second he needs to find. Needs to see. Maybe things will make sense then.

It takes time, and patience. But tracking is another one of his skills, and Steve Rogers is a habitual creature. He has an apartment in Brooklyn, but he sleeps in the giant Tower that belongs to Stark. He goes on runs, morning and night, and lurks around local bookstores and art supply shops, hunching as if he can hide his height and strength with a baseball cap and sheer force of will.

It gives him the urge to say "Buck up," just to hear the other man's laughter. He knows what it would sound like, deep and joyful, and the echo of it haunts him as he breaks into Steve's apartment. It's empty, and not just of the Captain. The few furnishings are bare, and there are two lone shirts hanging in the closet. There are crackers in one cupboard, and a mouse on the window sill that disappears when a floorboard creaks beneath his feet.

He doesn't bother trying to break into the Tower. He's sure he could get in, but not sure he could get back out again. His white-outs are decreasing in frequency, but still occur often enough that he avoids being in public for very long. He doesn't need to wake up surrounded by any more bodies.

One day he's following Steve and sees him stop for lunch at an outdoor cafe. A moment's impulse drives him to leave his rooftop perch and join the other man on the sidewalk. There's a sharp intake of breath and those blue eyes stare at him like the Captain is drowning and he's a life preserver.

He steals half of Steve's sandwich, muscle memories just as strong as those that know how to slit throats, and feels the weight of the other man's gaze drop to his arm, glinting in the sunlight. He eats quickly, not making eye contact, and then stands to go.

"Bucky," Steve says, softer than a whisper, and he hesitates, finally looking into the Captain's face. The longing there makes his pulse quicken and he shakes his head, static in his mind, then flees.

Steve doesn't follow.

He doesn't look for him for a week. Can't bear to watch and not touch. He doesn't think he was ever good at that.

His face feels more real, and the name, Bucky, almost tastes familiar.

He thinks about running, disappearing. He knows he could. Knows where a dozen more safehouses are, some with money and ID's. He could vanish, leave the bodies, and Steve, behind.

But everytime he considers it, he finds himself walking toward the Tower instead, like a broken compass that only points in one direction.

At one person.

A week and a half after eating Steve's sandwich, he breaks into the Tower.

There is chaos, and red and gold armor, and a giant hammer, and Steve, staring at him with hopeful blue eyes. He manages a shaky smile. "I told you we were going to the future."

Steve laughs, deep and joyful and half sob, and pulls him into his arms. "Yeah, you did."


	3. Chapter 3

The man on the other side of the glass is not the Winter Soldier. He is not Yasha either. He is not the ice cold man who taught her how to kill without remorse, nor the one whose metal hand was so achingly gentle on her skin as they shared illicit kisses in front of a shuttered Paris storefront while waiting for the car bomb they'd planted to go off.

Her eyes slide to Steve and she guesses, by his expression, that he feels much the same way.

Although, if asked, she would say that James is far closer to being Steve's Bucky than he is to being her, well, he never really was hers, was he?

James has answered every question put to him, although many of those answers consist of nothing more than a broken, "I don't know," and an increase in the depth of the pain lines around his eyes.

Steve has finally stopped flinching at most of the rest of James' answers, although his body, always so strong and sure, is crumpled in on itself and tight with tension. It makes her tense, both with sympathy for the man who has, like the rest of the team, somehow become someone she wishes to protect, and in preparation. Desperation has been building in their Captain for weeks and getting James back has not done much to ease it. Desperation can make anyone dangerous, and she doesn't think any of them are aware of or prepared for just how dangerous Steve Rogers could be.

She underestimated him, when he was first pulled from the ice. She thinks everyone did, except perhaps Coulson, who didn't get to live long enough to see his hero live up to the faith Coulson placed in him.

Steve's right hand clenches into a fist and Natasha looks back at James. He's slumped in his chair, one hand pressing against his temple. His eyes are half-closed and his mouth is twisted with pain and anger. She steps forward and raps against the glass. Maria stands and comes to the door, stepping out and closing it behind her before raising an eyebrow at Natasha.

"I think that should be enough for now. We'll get better answers if we let him rest," Natasha says, the voice of authority on brainwashed assassins, and lets her eyes casually flick to Steve, who looks ready to break down the door and drag James back to the Tower, and then back to Maria.

Maria nods, to both reasons, and then turns to face Steve. "The Tower is probably the most secure location we have. Although don't tell Fury I said that," she tells him, the barest hint of a smile curving her lips. "Take him home, Captain, and bring him back first thing in the morning. Our telepath checked him for triggers and he seems clean, but you are responsible for him, and for anyone he might be a danger to."

Left unspoken is that leaving him in SHIELD's custody would also leave him vulnerable to the Council, and the way they've been throwing their weight around ever since a certain incident with a nuclear warhead. They will throw a fit about letting a man with the Winter Soldier's record stay with a group of 'unstable and unreliable' people they cannot control no matter how hard they try. But Maria is within her rights to make that decision and Steve, of all of them, is best protected from the Council's machinations.

He is too public, and untouchable, a figure to be taken down or out the way the rest of them could be. At least, to the Council's point of view. Which, as always, is limited and flawed. Not that Natasha intends to do anything to correct them.

Steve is standing straighter, the guilt and fury weighing him down held at bay by the hope and relief visible on his face. The sincerity and openness of his emotions is painful to behold at times, although they have all learned to respect his ability to bluff. Tony still hasn't forgiven him for their first, and last, Avengers poker night.

She wonders if it was James who taught him to play, the way he taught her. She also wonders if they played for the same stakes. None of them have asked, but she knows she is not the only one who suspects that Steve and James were more than just best friends. She will not ask, not unless one of them volunteers the information.

It is a newer and safer world for such things, but some secrets are less about protection and more about treasuring something precious. They all have far too few of either kind left to be taking them from each other.

(Although the image of the two of them playing for clothes, and favors, is a pleasant one. She loves Clint, fought too hard to be able to even think that word to ever give it up unless he does, but she is not blind.)

Steve doesn't wait for any further instructions, or warnings, striding through the door into the interrogation room and offering James his hand. James takes it, after staring at it for several moments as if questioning its reality.

Steve pulls him to his feet and leads him out of the room, never letting go of his hand. He stares at Natasha, who smiles, and turns to lead them out of the building toward the street where one of Stark's cars is parked. Steve follows James into the back seat, never losing contact with him for a moment, and Natasha's suspicions as to the nature of their relationship deepen as they continue to hold hands for the duration of the ride to the Tower.

Their Captain is not someone who indulges in casual physical contact. He does not flinch away from unexpected touch, as Tony does with anyone who is not Pepper or Bruce, but he rarely initiates it. Yasha, on the other hand, had been very affectionate when they were away from the always watchful eyes of their masters. She wonders if the reason Steve never initiates contact is because he never had to. If James had always been the one to reach out, until he wasn't there anymore and Steve, confronted by an empty space at his side and a future he'd never expected, had never learned how to do so on his own.

When they arrive, Natasha waves off the security guards and punches her personal code into the elevator reserved for the use of the Tower's only residents. James is still too traumatized from the interrogation to react to his surroundings, but she knows that won't last. The fewer people he is forced to interact with, the better.

She'd texted ahead to warn the others, so no one was waiting on the common floor, enabling Steve to guide James to his own suite of rooms without running into anyone. Natasha walks to Thor's suite, knowing it's where the others will be with the common space banned from their use.

"So what's up, Nikita? Why am I housing yet another person capable of killing all of us with his pinky toe?"

"Speak for yourself, Son of Stark, I can not be bested by anyone's smallest toe," Thor rumbles. Tony shoots him a disbelieving look and Natasha exchanges a grin with Clint. Life has become so much more entertaining since they'd realized how often Thor was fucking with them by playing up his persona.

She's pretty sure Steve has always known, it's what he does after all. And sometimes she thinks Bruce has caught on. But Thor seems to be in one of Tony's blind spots and he buys it every time.

"They cleared him for triggers and they were done with interrogation for the day. And I think we all know it would have been a bad idea to leave James in SHIELD custody," Natasha says, answering Tony's question with a cold smile.

Tony snorts in answer as Clint grimaces and Bruce scowls down into his coffee. "How is Steven?" Thor asks, his voice quiet and his eyes revealing the intelligence he so often hides.

It's Natasha's turn to grimace as she slips onto the stool next to Clint and accepts the drink Tony slides down to her. "He's coping. For now. But the interrogation's just started, and we still don't know what the WSC is going to try and do with him." Not to mention how and when the reality of who James was now, and who Steve wanted him to be, are going to end up colliding. But that's their business, and maybe a tiny bit hers.

Not everything has to be shared with the team, even if she is slowly learning how to be more open with them.

"One of these days we're going to have to figure out a more permanent solution for the Council than fixing the clusterfucks they keep creating," Tony says into the silence that follows her words, his voice darker and angrier than it has been since their last confrontation with the teleporting girl.

Natasha desperately wants to agree with him, but dealing with the Council is going to require the kind of timing and calculation that their team of mostly impulsive, incredibly stubborn, and occasionally unstable individuals is not very good at. Which doesn't mean she doesn't think it's a good idea, just one that she doesn't want to bring Tony in on until his brand of improvisational brilliance will be most useful.

"One of these days," she says, in the kind of tone employees the world over used to complain about jobs they never actually quit, then drains her glass. "Right now though, I'm taking Clint to bed and the rest of you should consider the same. Between the teleporting girl, the incredibly dangerous nonagenarians several rooms over, and the likelihood of a random asshole deciding to pick tonight to try taking over the world, we should all get some sleep when we can."

"You know? I would never have pegged you for a buzzkill when we first met," Tony tells her, then lifts his glass in her direction. "Props for being the most dangerous dull person I know."

"Oh, Stark, you couldn't possibly be more wrong," Clint says, with a smirk that would earn him something painful under different circumstances. In this case, she lets it stand and leads him out of the room with an identical smirk of her own.

Unfortunately, her prediction proves all too accurate. Four hours after a decidedly not dull night with Clint, they're both woken up by one of the alarms they planted on the girl's potential targets.

The confrontation goes about as well as the others. They get there just barely in time and the girl disappears without a word after giving them a scathing glare. Natasha remembers every single member of the Red Room that she hunted down and killed, and has to resist the urge to snap the target's neck herself. Some men don't deserve protection, and it galls her to be on the other end of this situation.

The only silver lining is that Steve stayed with James. After seeing James' condition, and hearing his memories, Natasha isn't sure that he wouldn't have allowed the man to die, to make up for all the ones he can't punish.

They're in the car on their way back to the tower when Tony suddenly cheers. "Yes! I. Am. Awesome."

They all turn to stare at him and he grins with more than a little bit of a manic edge. "I think I know how to stop her from teleporting. I'm not going to bother explaining, because I'm pretty sure it would go over everyone's head except for maybe Thor's, because he's totally a teleporting savant, but I think I can stop her from getting away the next time she shows up."

There is a distinct lack of enthusiastic reactions and Tony shrugs. "Yeah, I know. But we're going to do it anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue to be happy about my _genius_ plan."

Natasha smiles at that, then leans back against Clint's shoulder and closes her eyes. It just might be time to bring the team in on her plans after all, because things are bound to go to hell in a handbasket if they catch that girl, and if they're gonna go out, they might as well go out with a bang.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **It's a little short, and a lot late, but here's some Steve POV.

* * *

~x~

Bucky's sleeping, his eyelids twitching frantically like they used to in Europe during the war. His body is unnaturally still, not relaxed and loose like it was when they were kids curled up in the same bed, or awkwardly scrunched up like it was on the hard ground they typically slept on after he'd found Bucky on Zola's lab table. He makes no noise, but then, he was always a quiet sleeper. Not like Steve, who wheezed and hacked his way through the first two decades of life.

Steve doesn't know how to sleep with Bucky in his bed anymore. He should. It should be more familiar than anything, including the bed itself, which is bigger and more expensive than anything he could have even dreamed of back in Brooklyn. Not having Bucky next to him at night was one of the hardest things to get used when he woke up and now, now he has him back, alive and as close to well as could be expected, and he can't sleep.

He's not afraid of Bucky. He is incapable of being afraid of Bucky. He is afraid _for_ Bucky, but that's a constant state of being—one he's experienced before—and it shouldn't interfere with his ability to enjoy a few hours of unconsciousness and terrifying nightmares, as per usual.

He doesn't even miss the sex. Well, that's a lie. Of course he misses the sex. But just having Bucky there, being able to see him and touch him—it's more than enough. More than he ever thought he'd have again.

But he still can't sleep.

So he lays there and watches Bucky, a strange reversal of fortunes from the many years in which it was Bucky who watched him all night to make sure he didn't die while Bucky wasn't looking.

Bucky wakes up with a suddenness that is all the more unnerving because he still doesn't move, just breathes heavily and stares at the ceiling. Steve shifts, enough to remind Bucky that he's there without actually bringing them into physical contact. After his breathing slows, Bucky turns his head to look at Steve with a bleak expression in his eyes.

They stare at each other for a long moment and then Bucky smiles, a crooked thing that makes Steve's chest hurt with a vicious mix of happiness and pain. "Hey, Stevie, did I wake you?"

Steve shakes his head and then reaches out to touch Bucky's cheek, no longer afraid to touch but still not sure enough to pull him close. "I was already awake." He doesn't ask if it was a bad dream, he knows that's the only kind Bucky has left.

In this, as always, Bucky is more sure than Steve is and slides over until he's close enough to breathe Steve's air. "Now I still don't remember everything, but I'm pretty sure even supersoldier you needs sleep. And you are not allowed to lose sleep over me. I remember enough to know that's my job. Even if I might be no good at it anymore."

Steve smiles, letting his arm fall so that it's wrapped securely around Bucky. "No version of you knows how to be bad at taking care of me. It's kind of a character flaw."

Bucky chuckles, rough and raspy but still the best thing Steve has ever heard. "Yeah, well, you're no peach yourself. Always getting in trouble."

Steve grins and ignores the burn in his throat, the teasing so familiar it aches with how good it feels.

Bucky shakes his head, the warmth fading from his eyes. "And now look at you, living in a tower full of crazy superheroes and a fucked up amnesiac best friend who's killed a whole lot of people." His voice starts light like Steve's, but it's filled with self loathing by the end and that burns more than anything since the ice. It's _wrong_, to hear that tone in Bucky's voice. Wrong and terrible and all he wants to do is tear the world apart and put it back together into something that makes sense—a world that doesn't have room for the horrors that happened to his best friend, his other half, the only person who knows him, all of him.

"I've killed a lot of people. So has every single one of those superheroes. And not all of them were bad, and not all of them deserved it. And you deserved absolutely nothing that happened to you. And I know you're smart enough to get that, because you used to tell me the same thing when I was breathing in my own vomit and wanting to die." Steve takes a breath, trying to control the sharp edge of fury at every person who has failed Bucky, every person who has hurt him so badly that Steve has somehow become the confident, self-assured one. "So how about we make a deal? You go on taking care of me and telling me to stop getting into trouble, and I'll go on losing sleep over you and loving you and ignoring you like the stubborn fool I am."

Bucky laughs, a sound full of far more things than amusement, and then kisses Steve. It's rough and messy and he breaks away far too soon, breathing heavily as Steve's heart feels like it's going to beat right out of his chest. "Sounds like a plan. Now go to sleep, because I don't trust myself with you right now and you are entirely too tempting when awake."

Steve's answering chuckle sounds too much like a sob, but he obediently closes his eyes. He can't fix his best friend tonight. He doesn't even think fix is the right word for something as big and awful and complicated as this is. But he can lay here, and he can be happy that Bucky is with him, and he can direct all his stubbornness into being patient.

Bucky deserves everything Steve can give and more, and giving him this is not a hardship.

x

Staring at the device in Tony's hands, a contraption designed to help them capture another victim of power-hungry experimentation, Steve feels that sharp burn of fury rise again. This is not what he signed up for, all those decades ago. And it's not what he agreed to, when a new century and a new government called him back to service. He signed up to _save_ people like this girl, not hunt them down in order to protect the assholes who'd hurt her to begin with.

This is wrong and his team knows and Maria knows it and, on his less cynical days, Steve is pretty sure that Fury knows it.

"We're not giving her to SHIELD," is what he says, his voice quiet but implacable.

Natasha looks unsurprised, and Bruce scowls in clear agreement. Thor and Clint look concerned, and Tony fiddles with the device for a moment before raising an eyebrow. "What did you have in mind, Captain?" There's a hint of sarcasm underlying the last word, but its use is also a clear acknowledgment that Tony will follow his lead in this and Steve's lips crook into the faintest of smiles.

"No matter what, I won't be a party to locking her back up. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions." He shrugs, smile widening into something more amused. "I happen to know a group of people with an excess of extraordinary abilities and a lack of common sense that she might fit in with."

Clint snorts and Natasha grins, bright and sharp. Bruce's smile is slower, darker, but he catches Steve's eye and nods. Thor is frowning, but shrugs his massive shoulders after a moment's pause. "It would be honorable to offer her the same second chance many of us were given. And it would give me great pleasure to help her defeat these cowardly men your government wishes to protect."

"If we do this, there's no going back. The WSC is not going to let this one slide and I'm pretty sure Fury won't be able to stop them from taking direct control of the Initiative if we disobey SHIELD"s orders," Tony pauses, letting his words his sink in, and then jerks his chin at Steve. "And we're not the only ones on the chopping block if they start flexing their muscles."

Steve bares his teeth in a grin that's all challenge and righteous rage. Bucky would recognize it in a heartbeat and Steve can almost hear the resigned sigh he'd let out. "Let them try."

His team grins back, variations of the same stubborn disregard for what 'should' be and the same dangerous anger that the WSC will never be able to control. Steve feels content for the first time in months as they settle in to wait for the next alert from their no-longer-target.

It's nice to be back on the side of the angels, even if his definition of angel has never quite matched up to the ones the nuns described back in the orphanage.

But faith for him was never about God anyways, it was about people, and he couldn't ask for anyone better to believe in than the people he has right now.


End file.
